Cyber SPIES in our GRID! Let the hand wringing begin!

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The spies came from China, Russia, and other countries, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials.

The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its Web site.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” a senior intelligence official told the Journal. “So have the Russians.”

Well well well, aren’t the fear mongers busy huh? Ok, well I will weigh in here on this. Having been inside two large power companies I have to say I am not at all surprised that state actors as well as the odd script kiddie have been inside the works. That China has been doing this in a more pronounced way should be NO SURPRISE at all to anyone who reads this blog or pays attention to whats been going on in the world of INFOSEC for some time now.

Now, lets expand this idea a bit more and ponder the connections to SCADA systems at Nuclear facilities, water, etc as well as their antiquated technologies for networking.

(insert gasp here!)

Yes, that’s right kids, there is much more to be worried about even if Nuclear facilities have redundant systems for control over the nuclear reaction. These systems are all rather old in my experience, kinda like the space shuttle and the space station all run on old computer systems.. “Security Through Obscurity” eh? But I digress.

Our Chinese overlords are working as diligently as others I am sure at staking their ground on US systems for the opportunity to take us down when they decide to as a part of their war strategy. IF we are slow witted enough to NOT take care of these issues and eventually have our infrastructure fall to their machinations, its our own fault for being too sloth like and dullards about security.

So, turn on your tv’s tonight and this week.. I am sure you will be seeing much more hand wringing about this.. The question then becomes “Will we make the changes needed to prevent this?”